The Shins - It's Only Life - James Mercer - Live Acoustic has been added as a related post - related requested by lucky760.

*related=https://videosift.com/video/The-Shins-Its-Only-Life-James-Mercer-Live-Acoustic

What a sad and cynical outlook on life. If life is not sacred, why is so much fuss made about the taking of it?

Actually, the people who really feel that life is not sacred is the left...they love their abortions! Another thought...the only life that is sacred for the left is the life of those on death row...can't take their life!

I would bet that George would be the first to scream for the sacredness of life if someone held a gun to his head and told him he was about to lose his.

The truth is that "intellectual laziness" is purely the territory of those who believe that their "knowledge" is irrefutable because it comes from the bible. A book clearly, irrefutably, written by man to control man. Saying "the bible says" so it must be true, is the definition of lazy, brain washed thinking. I'm sorry you cannot see this, perhaps one day you will. Actually, you may get help by looking at the myriad contradictions in the bible. Of course the theologians tell us "you are misinterpreting it." Well, considering it is, allegedly, the word of god, it's pretty poor. Oh, and incidentally, I certainly have not had "plain facts" revealed to me and chosen to ignore them. Were there even one fact indicating the existence of a creator. I would be happy to acknowledge it. Sadly, for the believers, all they have is blind faith and a book of childish stories. I, on the other hand, will enjoy the only life I am sure of. I will enjoy the many things that this one life has to offer, and do my best to be a caring, thoughtful, happy individual. When my time is up, if I am proved wrong, and find myself standing before the great dictator - who wanted me to bow and prostrate myself in abject worship, I will tell him I have been a good person and if that is not enough for him then I'm sure - in his "mercy" - he will send me straight to hell.

"It's only life."
...A shockingly direct and sincere statement from such young piercing blue eyes.

That really got me.

Seems impossible that we`re the only life in this universe, even the only intelligent life seems like a stretch.

>> ^messenger:

Is that original quote from you? It's brilliant.>> ^MaxWilder:
Only the religious can take the stance that he is a special chosen child of the one almighty god, created in his image, who loves us all and communicates with us individually and grants requests when we pray hard enough... and call that humility.
Only the religious can look at a man who knows he is an insignificant speck in the endlessly vast universe, barely clinging to life in a tiny sliver of ground that his uncountable ancestors fought and died for, whose only wish is to enjoy what short time he may have here and learn a little about how it really works... and call that hubris and arrogance.



Yup. That's the angry thought that pops into my head every time a religious zealot claims to be "a million times as humble as thou art."

I might also need to add something about man having dominion over all the animals, and being the only life in the universe.

Hey I'm an atheist and I think it's possible this is not our only life. It really seems to me like the mind could exist outside the body... like the body is just an antenna of sorts, drawing your seventh-dimensional self down into four dimensions. Anyhow, carry on.

And still, when it comes to other people and their beliefs we do not always respect them (or their beliefs). Imagine someone who believes that Elvis is still alive and "preaches" it. We effectively marginalize such people and do not respect their views. I would go so far to say we do not even respect them.

In most other areas, as Sam Harris puts it, to be highly certain of something with a low order of evidence is a sign that something is wrong with your mind. However, when it comes to religion, we must suddenly flip this on its end and respect other people's beliefs. Why?

When it comes to tolerance, I could care less what people believe in their own heads. If it would only stay there. I do not want their views imposing on my life as it does now through the hindering of science and an attachment to ancient moral values. They are actively hindering me from fulfillment in this the only life I think I have. And while their lives appear better to themselves it comes at the cost of almost endless suffering felt by others. Condoms in Africa anyone?

Summing it up: Believe what you want, but as soon as you put it out there and it affects others be ready to have your reasons inspected and challenged.

>> ^SDGundamX:

I'm 100% with mgittle on this. You don't convince people by disrespecting them. While you don't have to respect people's ideas, in a civilized society at least, you should respect the person who formed them and not assume they are a total idiot just because they don't agree with you.
My basic problem with his argument is that it assumes that faith is somehow imposed from the outside--as if the faithful have all been suckered--and he's here to save them all from it. A lot of faithful that I know are willingly faithful. They know there is no "hard" evidence. They have a choice and they choose to be faithful. Why? The answer is simple really: because their faith makes their lives better.
And how can you argue with that? Would you honestly accept someone else telling you demanding that you change because that's what they think is going to make you happy? It works both ways, of course. Most of us here hate it when one of the overzealous faithful shows up on our doorstep to proclaim how much better we'll be worshiping their particular deity. This guy is just doing the same thing in reverse. Like mgittle said, showing them how happy you can be is far more persuasive.
Problem, of course, is that again it works both ways. Some people see how happy a certain faithful person is and choose to embrace the faith as well. I honestly think certain people are happier and more productive when they are practicing a religion and others are happier and more productive when atheist. It just depends on the individual. And I absolutely agree with justanotherday that it is entirely possible for all of us to get along... if we all learn some respect.
That said, there are serious problems within many major organized religions, and these do need to be addressed. But I see that as a separate issue from that of faith (in Christianity), which is mostly what the video was about.

The concept of life outside of earth ought to be part of everyone's reality. I don't know about alien spacecraft actually visiting us and shooting beams of light into missile silos. If aliens were studying us it'd probably be accomplised by something like remote viewing through a wormhole or some such. In other words completely undetectable. What I am almost certain about is that alien life must exist. To me, looking out at the universe and believing we're the only life that exists is like one speck of sand believing it's special and magical among all the other specks of sand in existence. The numbers are against the presence of life here being unique. Most likely, life is commonplace. And I believe that intelligence is simply the logical result of self-organizing biology... intelligence leads to greater energy capture which is the immediate purpose of biological self-organization. In most cases you probably only get one intelligent species on a life-bearing planet at a time, but there are more planets out there than stars. Which is to say, a lot of cases.

Back to the wormhole thing. There's a theory that, at some point in the future, humans will develop remote viewing technology. That is, the use of wormholes to peer through time and space, giving an undetectable *live view* of events from the past. Not exactly visiting the past, more like snaking a SWAT team camera through time via wormholes. Now, according to the rules of big numbers, given the existence of remote viewing technology in the future, and future extending for millions and billions of years... every single moment of every single person's life is probably being directly observed by someone in the future. Of course, more important moments are being watched by billions or trillions of people from the future. But on average, every moment is watched at least once. Think about that shit.

Arthur C Clarke wrote a book around this concept called The Light of Other Days. Needless to say, the ultimate, ultimate extents of the technology in the book are pretty mindblowing.

It's a new comedic angle though.

Personally I disagree with Pascal not simply because Yahweh is supposed to be able to read minds and tell if you're faking, but because I reckon you do have something to lose in this life if you bet that there is a god and spend your time worshipping it. You lose time (best spent appreciating the only life that you're ever going to have) by fixating on some future life somewhere else that probably doesn't exist.

>> ^rgroom1:

I always thought "no atheists in a foxhole" meant no atheist would be stupid enough to fight/risk their only life in a war...


hard to call someone brave if they believe sacrificing themselves "honorably" would lead them to an eternal afterlife of pleasure and happiness... takes the consequence away doesn't it...

isn't there a term for people that believe this sort of thing?

...

oh yeah,
suicide bombers

I always thought "no atheists in a foxhole" meant no atheist would be stupid enough to fight/risk their only life in a war...

>> ^Gallowflak:
>> ^demon_ix:
As someone who is currently receiving treatment for depression, all I can say is Fuck you very much, Mr. Gervais. If you really think saying "snap out of it" is enough, you have no idea wtf you're talking about.
Also, I never thought you were funny.

As someone who was receiving treatment for serious, clinical depression for two years and was rendered genuinely pyschologically non-functional, I completely agree with Gervais.
"Snap out of it" isn't the gist of what Gervais is saying here, but rather that celebrities are fucknuts. "Depression" is not synonymous with "feeling a bit under the rain this week, I might as well milk a few hundred K out of an exclusive interview with Who Gives a Fuck Daily". Depression is a serious issue that's trivialized by these cocklords whose only life interest is their own vapid, superficial prosperity, clamoring for attention and publicity in whatever forms they can find.
I'm not denying that some "celebrities" might well be under the influence of deep depression but, at the same time, my sympathy melts away right around the point that they start publishing books and giving interviews. That's the problem with attention-seekers - they'll use anything in their life as arsenal to get more people to look at them.


I don't doubt for a minute that there are narcissistic attention whores out there that use their problems as a way of staying in the spotlight, I'm still not sure how you can tell the difference between an "attention-seeker" and someone who's genuine about sharing their experiences. How about a few examples, name someone you see as an attention whore and then someone who you think is genuine, I'd be interested in knowing what the difference is.
When it comes to mental illness I think silence is one of the biggest killers and if doing an interview or writing a book helps people and brings attention to the issue then bully for them I say.
As for Gervais I don't hate the guy, I think he's a pretty funny and sometimes I give comedians (especially good ones) a break on saying outrageous crap, hell if they don't piss me off every now and again I start to think that they're slacking off. Also I could forgive it as pretty much everyone suffers a case of foot-in-mouth disease every now and again, luckily most of us don't have the means to broadcast it to millions.
Also, westy, you still seem to be under the impression that all working class people just stoically soldier on when they get these problems, a heart-attack doesn't care whether you have time for it or not it just happens. Depression is the same way, you get so depressed that you can't do anything anymore, maybe you lose your job or your family, or your life.